“Ed won’t like it if you throw up on his crime scene,” he said mildly, taking her arm and slamming the car door in Riley’s face.

She huffed a chuckle. “If I turn green, run.” But the chuckle disappeared as they neared the house. Her step slowed and her body trembled. This was a real physical reaction, Daniel realized.

“PTSD,” he murmured. Post-traumatic stress disorder. She had all the signs.

“I figured that out on my own,” she muttered. “Don’t let me run. Promise me.”

“I promise. I’ll be right behind you.” He lightly pushed her up the front porch stairs.

“I got this far before.” She said it between her teeth. Her face had grown very pale.

“I wasn’t with you before,” he said. She leaned back at the open front door and Daniel gently but firmly propelled her forward. She stumbled, but he caught her, keeping her upright. Her body was shaking now and he could hear her muttering to herself.

“Quiet, quiet.”

“The screams?” he asked and she nodded. He looked over her shoulder. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest, her face was clenched, her eyes closed tight. Her lips moved in a silent mantra of “Quiet, quiet.” Daniel slipped his arms around her waist and held her to him. “You’re doing great. You’re in the living room, Alex.”

She only nodded, her eyes still clenched shut. “Tell me what’s here.”

Daniel puffed out a breath. “Well, it’s a mess. There’s garbage on the floor.”

“I can smell it.”

“And there’s an old mattress on the floor, too. No sheet. The mattress is stained.”

“With blood?” she asked through her teeth.

“No, probably sweat.” She was still trembling, but not as violently. He tucked her under his chin. She fit perfectly. “There’s an old picture hanging on the wall, crooked. It’s one of those beach scenes with the sand dunes. It’s discolored and old.”

She was relaxing into him a little more each minute. “That was never here before.” She opened her eyes and drew a sharp breath. “The walls are painted.” There was relief in her voice and Daniel thought about how this house must appear in her dreams.

She’d found her mother dead in this room. He’d discovered gun-to-the-head suicides over the course of his career. At least one of the walls would have been covered in blood, brains, and bits of bone. What a horrific memory to have carried all these years.

“The carpet is blue,” he said.

“It was brown before.” She turned her head, taking it all in. “It’s all different.”

“It’s been thirteen years, Alex. It’s to be expected that they’d clean up. Paint. Nobody would leave the house the way you remembered it.”

Her laugh was self-deprecating. “I know. I should have known, anyway.”

“Sshh.” He kissed the top of her head. “You’re doing great.”

She nodded, her swallow audible. “Thank you. Wow, the cops were right. This place is a sty.” She nudged the mattress with her toe. “Bailey, what were you thinking?”

“You want to come with me to look for Ed?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes,” she blurted. “Don’t-”

Don’t leave me alone. “I won’t leave you, Alex. You ever see those old vaudeville acts? We’ll just walk like them.”

She chuckled, but it was a pained sound. “This is ridiculous, Daniel.”

He started walking, keeping her close. “Ed?” he called.

The back door slammed and Ed came in through the kitchen. His serious expression became one of surprise when he saw Alex. “Did the EMTs say she was okay?”

“You called them?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah. She was white as a sheet and her pulse was through the moon.”

“Thank you, Agent Randall,” she said, and Daniel could hear the embarrassment in her voice. “I’m okay now.”

“I’m glad.” He looked at Daniel, gentle amusement in his eyes. “I offered to hold on to her, but she turned me down flat.”

Daniel gave him a don’t-even-think-about-it look and Ed bit back his smile, then sobered, his hands on his hips as he looked around the room. “This is staged,” Ed declared, and beneath Daniel’s chin, Alex’s head shot up.

“What?” she demanded.

“Yes, ma’am. Somebody wanted this place to look like a mess. This carpet is dirty, but the dirt’s not ground in. The base of the carpet fibers are clean-somebody’s vacuumed recently and often. The dust on everything? We’ve taken samples and will run all the tests back at the lab, but I’m betting it’s all the same composition. Looks like a mix of ash and dirt. The toilets are so clean you can drink out of them.” His lips curved. “Not that I’m recommending it, mind you.”

“The social worker said Hope was found in a closet.” She pointed. “Right there.”

“We’ll check it out.”

Daniel knew Ed well enough to know there was more. “What did you find?”

Alex went rigid against him. “Tell me. Please.”

“Outside in the woods in back of the house, there was a struggle. We found blood.”

“How much blood?” Alex asked, very quietly.

“A lot. Someone had covered the area with leaves, but the wind last night blew them around. We’re finding a lot of leaves with blood smears. I’m sorry.”

Unsteadily she nodded. She was trembling again. “I understand.”

Daniel tightened his hold on her. “Did you find blood here in the house, Ed?”

“Not yet, but we’ve really just started. Why?”

“Because Hope is coloring with red crayons,” Alex answered for him. “If she was hiding in the closet the whole time, she wouldn’t have seen the blood.”

“So she was either looking through a window or she was out there,” Daniel finished.

“We’ll check it out,” Ed promised.

Daniel tugged on Alex. “Come on, Alex. Let’s go outside. You’ve seen enough.”

Her chin went up. “Not yet. Can I go upstairs, Agent Randall?”

“If you don’t touch anything.”

But she didn’t move. Daniel leaned down to murmur in her ear, “You want to walk vaudeville or ride over my shoulder, caveman style?”

She closed her eyes and her hands clenched around the bandages. “I have to do this, Daniel.” But her voice shook. She was past cool, past scared.

Daniel didn’t necessarily agree that this was a good idea. He could already see the change in her face. She was pale, her forehead clammy. Still, he gave her a squeeze of encouragement. “If you think so, then I’ll go with you.”

She got to the stairs and stopped. She was shaking head to toe, her breath shallow and rapid. She grabbed the banister, her fingers digging in like claws. “Just a damn house,” she muttered and pulled herself up two of the stairs before stopping again.

Daniel turned her face so that she looked at him. Her eyes were glassy and terrified.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Then don’t,” he whispered back.

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But I have to.” She closed her eyes, wincing with pain. “It’s really loud,” she said, sounding more like a child.

“What do they say?” he asked and her eyes flew open.

“What?”

“What do they say when they scream?”

“ ‘No.’ And she says, ‘I hate you, I hate you. I wish you were dead.’ ” Tears rolled down her ashen cheeks.

Daniel smoothed away her tears with his thumb. “Who says that?”

She was sobbing now, silently. “My mom. It’s my mom.”

Daniel turned her into his arms and she clutched the lapels of his suit as her whole body shook with the force of her silent weeping. He backed down the few stairs she’d climbed, taking her with him.

When they got outside, the ambulance was packing up to leave. Bledsoe took one look at Alex, bowed over and stumbling, and started toward them. Daniel leveled the man his coldest look and Bledsoe stopped in his tracks.

“What happened?” Bledsoe asked.

“This is not a garden-variety panic attack,” Daniel bit out. “Get out of the damn way.”

Bledsoe started walking backward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

“Damn straight you didn’t think. I said move.”